


Of Chance and Kings

by tryslora



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny, Magic University - Cecilia Tan
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Random and Alex, chance and luck, cards and beer and strange smokes. Nothing more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Chance and Kings

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains spoilers for the fourth book of the Magic University series (The Poet & the Prophecy). If you don't want to be spoiled, go read the book, THEN read this story!
> 
> The rights to the world & characters of Amber belong to the Zelazny estate, and the rights to the world & characters of Magic University belong to Cecilia Tan. I just love to play in both worlds. No infringement is intended.
> 
> This is for ravenna_c_tan in honor of the release of the conclusion of the series. It is fresh off the fingertips and absolutely unbetaed. All typos are mine all mine.

Alex never assumed he’d drink alone. Whether he arrived on his own or in the company of others, by the end of the night he usually had someone else (or several someones) at the table with him, filled with alcohol and good cheer. He never minded, trusting in luck to bring him whatever was supposed to happen at the time.

When the cards dropped on the table in front of him, he figured that night’s _something_ was a game of chance.

He grinned. He loved games of chance.

He picked up the deck, idly shuffling it without looking at the cards, keeping his attention instead on the guy who sat down opposite him. Not too tall, shaggy straw-colored hair, sharp green eyes that looked older than the anemic teen appearance of the body. A lazy demeanor that mirrored Alex’s own, stretched out and sprawled in the chair, a pint of good beer (none of that domestic barely colored water crap) in one hand. “Poker?” Alex asked.

“Anything,” the other guy answered. “As long as we play with that deck.”

Always a suspicious start to any game, when someone insists on their deck. But Alex wasn’t invested enough to argue and suggest getting out a sealed, unmarked deck. If the cards were marked, so be it; that was just another element in the game. He could work around it. Still not looking at the cards as they sifted through his fingers, he asked, “Why this deck?”

“Because it’ll drive my siblings absolutely fucking nuts.” The guy grinned, wide and bright, something sharp and fierce in the expression. “Especially Fiona, and any chance I get to poke her is worth it. She’ll be riding my ass about not being home as it is.”

“Close family?” Alex dealt the cards, five to each of them. There were plenty of other games they could play, but poker was simple, required no thought, and worked halfway decently for only two people, and expanded well to allow for more if others were drawn in by the scent of gambling.

The guy snorted. “Hardly. But yes, in some ways we are. It’s hard to explain.”

Alex thought about some of the things he’d been through recently, like being trapped in a pocket of reality while the rest of the world rewrote itself on the outside. “Oh, I’d believe some pretty strange things. You could try me.”

“Another time, maybe.” The guy tapped out a cigarette, lighting it and puffing out a soft whiff of smoke. It didn’t smell like mundane tobacco, an edge of spice around it. Not cloves, not marijuana. Something Alex couldn’t identify, and that surprised him. Catching his notice, the guy offered it across the table.

“Will it get me high?” Alex asked.

“Probably.”

Alex took it and inhaled, going by instinct to hold most of it in his lungs and letting out his own small wisp of pale smoke. It burned, but it warmed at the same time, as good as some of the better potions he’d tried. “Not bad,” he allowed, passing it back. “I’m Alex.” After all, if you were going to get high with someone, might be polite to introduce oneself.

“Random.”

It was Alex’s turn to snort. “That’s an odd name. Perfect for a gambler.”

Random grinned. “I always thought so.”

They fell silent then, giving in to the pattern of the game. Look at the cards, make your choices, request more and bid or fold. There was money on the table, simply coins and nothing more. Alex idly noted the cards in his hand were old and traditional, the coins and cups seeming to make more sense to him than diamonds or hearts. Every once in a while a member of the major arcana would show, and beyond that, strange face cards. In the haze of the smoke, Alex caught one glaring at him, red hair falling to brush her shoulders, eyes flashing irritation. He snorted at her and went on, trading her in for the three of coins to give him four of a kind.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to relax like this.” Random lit their third smoke, his fourth pint in his other hand. He looked like he might be about nineteen, but Alex noted the bartender never argued when delivering him another drink. It reminded Alex of himself, long ago, when he was fresh and new and testing out his luck.

“Can’t be that long, unless you’ve been in bars since you were thirteen,” Alex pointed out, laying down the four threes, fanned out, a woman with green hair in a pale blue dress sitting next to them on the fifth card.

“Fifteen,” Random allowed. “I walked out of my house and started trying to find every bar across reality that I could manage. Stopped sometimes to play—music or cards. But that all ended a dozen years or so ago.”

Not nineteen. Alex considered his features, tucking that away in his mind. “Just how fey are you?” After all, it wasn’t wrong to talk about magic to others who were a part of that world. Not that it was wrong to talk about it at all, anymore. But it would take some time to get used to the new rules.

“Not fey. Something else.” Random took a toke and passed the cigarette across to Alex. “Yesterday, relatively speaking, was my one thousandth birthday. Give or take.” He laid down his cards—two kings, a sour looking man in white armor, the tower, and a dark forest—and made a face. “Arden always comes up once Julian’s in my hand, no matter how well the cards are shuffled.”

“Happy birthday then.” A thousand years was impressive. A couple of hundred, Alex could’ve believed that. But at the same time, he was sure Random wasn’t lying to him. Not about this, anyway. “Strange place to come to celebrate your birthday,” he observed.

“I found I’d been missing myself.” Random let the cards lie, leaving Alex to collect the coins that had fallen between them for this round. “It’s been long enough that I’d forgotten what I was like, so I decided I might want to find myself and have a drink and a game of cards.”

“Have you found him yet?” Alex had a feeling he knew where this was going, and a part of him wondered when he’d fallen asleep. This was far more dream than reality. Or maybe he was wrong and Kyle hadn’t managed to save the world, and this was what it was like, floating in the space past where their house had gone when Alex split it off from reality.

“Your luck’s better than mine,” Random said, as if that answered the question, and Alex supposed it did. “I’ve just got one question for you.”

“Hm?” Alex set the used cards aside, and dealt out five new from the remainder of the deck. When he picked up his cards a gamine girl smiled at him, winking and tilting her sword in acknowledgement. “What’s that?”

Random left his cards on the table, leaning forward, expression intent and alert. “How the hell did you manage to avoid becoming king?”

Oh. That. Alex laughed, tossing the gamine girl onto the discard pile and picking another card, hoping for the seven of wands. No luck. Had it fallen earlier? The smoke was messing with his mind, making it difficult to remember what had gone by already. “Easy. I found someone else to do it for me. See, all that’s really needed is a white knight willing to rewrite reality and be promoted to kingship in order to have his queen.”

“Right, right,” Random mused. He tossed two cards into the discard pile, and took two more. “That’s where I went wrong. Neither Dad nor Corwin was a white knight, so they left everything to fall on the shoulders of the king. Couldn’t get out of it.” He spread his cards on the table—two sixes, two sevens, and the image of Random’s own face staring up at them. He set a coin on the table, pushing it towards Alex, larger and heavier than what they’d been playing for, a dark dusky gold, burnished with the oils of a hundred fingertips. “You’re going to win this hand.”

Alex looked at the cards he held. He knew he’d played the fours earlier, but there were three there anyway, along with two sevens, including the wand he’d been looking for. He laid the cards out on the table. “You cheated.”

Random grinned. “Just dumb luck, which is something I’ve got in spades. Now I’ve got to get home.” He put the gold coin down on the card of his face with a small thunk before gathering up the rest of the deck and putting it into a silver case. “That’s the thing about being king. They never let you walk away from the responsibility for more than a bit at a time, and I’ve still got a gig at a club three shadows over to perform before I go back.”

Alex watched as he walked away, not sure exactly when he disappeared, somehow, between one step and the next. But it didn’t matter, not really. Strange things happened all the time, after all.

He slipped the card and the coin into his pocket as things to look at another day. Then he sat back with his beer and the last of the smoke they’d been sharing and waited. The night was far from over, after all. Someone else interesting would come along soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The first time I read The Poet & The Prophecy, when Alex explains to Kyle about kingship, I had vague thoughts about this story. Then I hit a few other things, and by the end of the book, I knew I had to put down into words a crossover fic between Amber and MU. I have notes scribbled to myself with other crossover ideas as well. But the archetypical king, and the similarities between Random's mastery over luck in shadows, and Alex's innate luck, were just impossible for me to resist.


End file.
